Saponified ethylene/vinyl acetate copolymers (hereinafter referred to as "saponified EVA") are widely used as wrapping films, bottles, cups, trays, etc. for foodstuffs and medicines, because of their good gas barrier properties, moldability, transparency, low water absorption (lower than that of polyvinyl alcohol), and so forth. These saponified EVA, however, are rarely used in the form of a single layer because of its high moisture permeability and deterioration of oxygen barrier property under high humidity, and are usually used in a multi-layer form in combination with polyolefin having high moisture barrier property, for example, as a coextruded article or an extrusion laminated article.
In production of articles, for package having such a multi-layer structure, wastes that cannot be utilized, such as trimming wastes, wastes of extrusion and the like, are inevitably formed. In some cases, the proportion of such wastes reaches about 50%.
For the above reasons, these articles such as multilayered films and containers have undesirably the increased production costs and their applications are often limited although they are very useful for package. It has been strongly desired to develop a technique which permits to utilize such wastes.
When trimming wastes, wastes of extrusion or the like of a multi-layered article of polyolefin and saponified EVA are merely mixed and extruded, a uniform mixture cannot be obtained because of their very poor compatibility and layer separation tends to occur, and the resulting molded article has very poor mechanical strength and transparency. For this reason, if the thus-formed composition is coextruded as a layer of a desired article such as a multi-layer film, the product having satisfactory transparency, moldability, mechanical strength and moisture barrier which are required as articles for package cannot be obtained, and such a product has a very low practical value. Of these disadvantages, poor transparency is most serious.